This invention relates to an automatic depositing/dispensing apparatus, and more specifically to an automatic depositing/dispensing apparatus for automatically depositing and dispensing notes at the windows of financial institutions such as banks.
Recently, banks and other financial agencies have started to use, with excellent results, apparatuses called auto-cashiers, such as depositing machines, cash dispensers, customer-operated automatic teller machines (ATM), etc.
In the existing circumstances, however, only the cash dispensers are installed in the lobby counter section of financial agencies for tellers' operation, and no depositing machines are used.
This is for the following reasons. In general, considering the stationing of tellers at the lobby counter, cost of mechanization, and waiting time for each service, it is advisable to set one auto-cashier between each two tellers. Hereupon, the auto-cashier may be so designed that a depositing machine is placed on top of a cash dispenser. With this arrangement, however, it is very difficult to locate the head section of the auto-cashier below the high counter which should be approximately one meter high above the floor. Thus, the head section of the auto-cashier projects above the high counter interfering with the view or causing inconvenience to customers.
Some banking facilities have used apparatuses in which a depositing machine and a cash dispenser are arranged side by side. However, these apparatuses have been abandoned, since it is very awkward for each of two adjoining tellers to operate the apparatus on his neighbor's depositing machine or cash dispenser.
With the conventional manual counting system, a cashier hands a very small sum of money to each teller in the morning. The tellers appropriate bank notes received from depositing customers for dispensing to drawing customers. Thus, the efficiency of fund flow at the teller's window is improved. If the depositing machine and the cash dispenser are installed independently, however, a considerable amount of bank notes for payment will have to be set in the cash dispenser, while bank notes will steadily accumulate in the depositing machine. Thus, the efficiency of fund operations is lowered.
To counter the circulation of forged notes accelerated by the recent progress and spread of printing technology, importance is attached to the authenticity decision at teller's windows. Also, there is an urgent demand for mechanization at the windows for accurate counting operation and higher personnel efficiency.
In order to meet these various requirements, there have been proposed depositing/dispensing apparatuses in which a judgment section and a note outlet, as well as a control section and drive systems, are used in common for depositing and dispensing operations to improve space efficiency. Moreover, these apparatuses use a compact housing to satisfy all those requirements except that for higher efficiency of fund operations.
However, the improvement of efficiency of fund operations, as well as the rationalization of personnel management, is essential to the service at the teller's windows of financial institutions. Accordingly, there has been an increasing demand for the development of depositing/dispensing apparatuses of an automatic circulation type which directly adopt the current window system to appropriate deposited funds for payment.
An example of the prior art depositing/dispensing apparatus of the automatic circulation type is disclosed in Japanese Patent Disclosure No. 33757/81. In this depositing/dispensing apparatus, however, a storage section for storing deposited notes to be appropriated for dispensation is provided independently of a temporary storage space for temporarily keeping the deposited notes before storing them in the storage section because some of the notes may have to be returned. Thus, the space for the storage of the notes is large, and constitutes a hindrance to the manufacture of a compact depositing/dispensing apparatus adapted for teller window operation.